Do mothers of extremely preterm babies have a duty to express breastmilk?
Do mothers of extremely preterm babies have a duty to express breastmilk?
Infant feeding decisions are highly emotionally charged. I argue elsewhere that many problems surrounding infant feeding decisions result from a moralized context created by mistakes in our assumptions about maternal duties including the mistaken assumption that mothers have a defeasible moral duty to breastfeed. Mothers have a reason, but not a moral duty to breastfeed. Even those who are convinced by my argument in the case of full-term babies, might find it harder to accept in the case of premature babies. It might seem that mothers do have a defeasible moral duty to breastfeed or, as is more likely to be appropriate in such cases, to express breastmilk. Here, I explain why preterm neonates present a tricky case for the right not to breastfeed. I show why, nonetheless, moral pressure for mothers to express breastmilk in the neonatal unit is neither permissible nor pragmatically advisable. I argue that instead we should address structural barriers to providing breastmilk and support donor milk initiatives.
22-24
Woollard, Fiona
c3caccc2-68c9-47c8-b2d3-9735d09f1679
20 April 2020
Woollard, Fiona
c3caccc2-68c9-47c8-b2d3-9735d09f1679
Woollard, Fiona
(2020)
Do mothers of extremely preterm babies have a duty to express breastmilk?
Acta Paediatrica, 110 (1), .
(doi:10.1111/apa.15323).
Abstract
Infant feeding decisions are highly emotionally charged. I argue elsewhere that many problems surrounding infant feeding decisions result from a moralized context created by mistakes in our assumptions about maternal duties including the mistaken assumption that mothers have a defeasible moral duty to breastfeed. Mothers have a reason, but not a moral duty to breastfeed. Even those who are convinced by my argument in the case of full-term babies, might find it harder to accept in the case of premature babies. It might seem that mothers do have a defeasible moral duty to breastfeed or, as is more likely to be appropriate in such cases, to express breastmilk. Here, I explain why preterm neonates present a tricky case for the right not to breastfeed. I show why, nonetheless, moral pressure for mothers to express breastmilk in the neonatal unit is neither permissible nor pragmatically advisable. I argue that instead we should address structural barriers to providing breastmilk and support donor milk initiatives.
Text
Shorter Clean Do Mothers of Extremely Preterm Babies Have a Duty to Express Breastmilk_
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 17 April 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 April 2020
Published date: 20 April 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This paper is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under grant agreement number 679586.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
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Local EPrints ID: 439667
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/439667
ISSN: 0803-5253
PURE UUID: 873c9ea2-fc4e-4e00-8c16-eb5e2b162ae1
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Date deposited: 29 Apr 2020 16:30
Last modified: 28 Apr 2022 06:11
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